


Parenting Advice

by steeleblue (orphan_account)



Category: DCU - Comicverse
Genre: F/M, First Crush, Gen, Pre-Reboot, speedsters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-11
Updated: 2011-12-11
Packaged: 2017-10-27 04:47:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/291774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/steeleblue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dick wants to be a good brother/pseudo-parent for Damian. He goes to the obvious person for advice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Parenting Advice

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a wishlist prompt on livejournal, for risskabob.

“So, I need some advice,” Dick says, two seconds after hanging up the phone, which is how long it takes Wally to arrive from Keystone.

“And I couldn't give this advice over the phone?” Wally asks, poking around the Batcave like it might have changed drastically since the last time he visited.

“In this family?” Dick shrugged. “You can never be sure who’s tapping the phone lines.”

“I worry when you say things like that and I’m not surprised.” In the time it took Dick to roll his eyes, Wally sped away and returned with some of Alfred’s cookies. “You guys always know how to feed a speedster, I’ll give you that.”

Dick watched the cookies disappear mournfully.

“So, what's this advice on, buddy o’ mine. There aren’t exactly a lot of subjects where YOU come to ME for advice.”

“It’s about Damian.”

Wally stared blankly. “In what way am I qualified to help you with DAMIAN?”

“You're a parent,” Dick pointed out. “And my age.”

“There is another red haired friend of ours who has MUCH more experience as a parent than I do,” Wally replied. “Especially when you consider that my kids are hyper-accelerated.”

“You have a boy,” Dick explains, leaning back in the chair in front of the bat computer and double checking that all the monitoring equipment in the cave is temporarily on loop. “And Lian is a very sweet, very normal little girl.”

“Should I be insulted on Irey’s behalf?” Wally asks wryly.

Dick glares half-heartedly. “She and Jai are in the business - like Damian.”

“Okay, since I’ve exhausted most avenues of protest and this conversation is taking like a relative month - what’s the problem with batboy?” Sometimes Wally’s frustration with the world being so much slower is more a show than anything else. Dick deliberately takes his time spinning his chair around, double checking Damian’s tracker on the computer screen, and glancing at his JLA communicator before giving the speedster his full attention.

Wally looks vexed.

Dick grins smugly, and then turns serious. “Okay, he's been really moody lately.”

Wally snorts. “Oh, I’m sorry, this is new?”

“Hey!” Dick glares and kicks half-heartedly. “That’s my little brother you’re talking about.”

“Oh please, like you haven’t said worse,” Wally replies, which is true, but Dick complains in CONFIDENCE, damn it. And with affection. “What kind of moody?”

“Just...sometimes he gets really... listless and unmotivated, it's not like him.” Dick doesn’t say that it's so not-Damian that the first time it happened Dick made a manful attempt to take the kid to the hospital, and only loud flailing on Damian’s part and Alfred’s calm reasoning stopped him.

“Dick, he’s a pre-teen. They get moody sometimes.”

Dick frowns. “I know! It’s Damian, Wally. I’m used to the moodiness. It's just...different. Something has changed.”

“Have you tried asking him?”

Dick smiles sheepishly.

Wally pinches the bridge of his nose. “Only you, Dick, are too scared to confront an eleven year old.”

“I don't want him to close himself off from me!” Dick protests valiantly, rather than admitting that he has tried several times and received a range of blank stares, half-hearted explanations of food poisoning (seriously, did Damian think he was an idiot?) and on one memorable occasion, some rambling about apple scented pigs.

“Something is wrong!”

Wally opens his mouth, but is interrupted by the Bat computer's alarm blinking an intruder warning. Level 5.

“What?” Dick spins around in his chair. “Level 5? How the hell...They would have to BE in the damn-”

“Hi, Uncle Dick!” a sweet voice says, right in his ear.

Dick doesn't jump in his chair. Or make any reactions that would in any way indicate surprise. “Hi, Irey.”

Wally's daughter beams at him, before turning excitedly to her father. “Did I get him, Dad?”

Wally's grin is obnoxiously wide. “Yeah, you got him, sweetie.”

“Hey! How about asking me?” He puts on a wounded expression that makes Impulse giggle.

“You’d lie,” she tells him boldly. “Because you are a Bat!”

She says it like gospel taught to speedsters every Sunday as they commune with the Speed Force.

Irey spins to face her father. Her red pigtails hit Dick across the face. He tugs on one playfully.

“Mom says you have to be home in thirty minutes,” Irey tells her father seriously, shaking her hair out once Dick releases her pigtail. “I said that was AGES, but she made me come anyway. We’re having pizza.”

Wally pats her on the head. “Thanks, sweetie, but you should probably go now before the Batman here-”

There is a crash as Damian arrives back in the cave and loudly announces his dissatisfaction with his evening task of staking out a street corner that did not need staking out. Dick refuses to feel guilty, because seriously, the one night he needs Damian occupied and NO CRIME is happening in Gotham? Just his luck.

“I don't care what you say about ‘practice’, Grayson, that was a useless waste of my ti-” Damian stops cold, blinking several times and then going a strange gray colour. He is staring at Irey blankly. “Impulse.”

Irey waves cheerfully. “Hi, Damian! Bye, Damian!”

Then she’s gone. Damian looks hunted. “How’d she get in?”

“Through the walls, I presume,” Dick replies blandly, giving Wally a pointed look. Seriously, speedsters think they could go anywhere. Wally, however, is giving Damian a very strange smile and paying no attention to Dick whatsoever.

“Ah, to be young again,” is all the Flash says, wriggling his eyebrows at Dick meaningfully and disappearing before Dick can even think to articulate a question.

It takes two very loud seconds of silence in the cave before everything clicks in Dick’s mind.

“Oh my God.”

Damian cringes.

“YOU HAVE A CRUSH!”

Damian goes red in the face and looks anywhere but at him. “That’s ridiculous, Grayson, I have no idea what you're talking about. Sit here and waste time if you wish, but I am going upstairs. I have to do things. Upstairs. Important things. Away from you.”

The kid actually flees from his presence. Dick beams at nothing in particular. This is going to be so much fun!

“Oooooh, I get it now! Apple scented pigtails! Damian, come back and tell me all about her hair!”


End file.
